nuclear-news

To 14 August – nuclear and climate news

Some puzzlement. North Korea threatens to fire intermediate-range ballistic missiles into waters NEAR Guam. USA and its deputy sheriff Australia see this as an attack ON Guam. Kim Jong Un might not be  a very nice man. But he’s not mad. He saw what happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Gaddafi in Libya, seeing that they didn’t have nuclear weapons. As for Trump – a narcissistic sociopath who delights in his own unpredictability – who knows what he might do?

A great pity that the very real global crisis of climate change is now taking a media back seat to the  USA-North Korea tensions.

I’m  attaching a picture this time – surely the saddest image from the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. A boy standing at rigid attention with the dead body of his infant brother strapped to his back at a crematorium in Nagasaki . Photographer Joe  O’Donnell recalled that the boy stared motionless as bodies were being burned and he awaited his turn. He also noticed that the boy’s lips were caked with blood because he was biting them so hard, although no blood spilled.

NUCLEAR. Can Donald Trump be prevented from plunging the world into nuclear war?

Donald Trump: USA ready to act militarily against North Korea: Merkel calls for de-escalation of the rhetoric.

Risk of US-N.Korea nuclear war increases, but is still unlikely.

China confident about new sanctions on North Korea: Trump prepared for “preventive war”

CLIMATE. The human effect – as New York and other cities become climate changed sweltering hotspots.

Temperatures of 55°C to emerge if global warming continues. By the end of the century, extreme weather could kill 150,000 people each year in Europe. No Climate Money for Nuclear Power.

USA – Climate 

• Fearsome climate prospect. Will Trump administration suppress a major federal climate change report?  
• Trump administration formally withdraws from climate agreement, aims to expand fossil fuel industries. USA Congress going all out to make Trump’s anti-climate orders become the law. – Aware that Donald Trump might suppress this climate change report, scientists release the draft for public information. –
• U.S Government employees ordered not to use certain words, especially “climate change”
•  Fossil fuel industries funded climate denial as a religious belief.  
• Smoke Blankets Western North America, 106 F Temps in Portland, Flash Northern Plains Drought Threatens U.S. Wheat Crop. Smoke from British Columbia temporarily masking heat to Southern USA States.

USA – Nuclear

• USA can learn to live with North Korea as a nuclear weapons state 
• Hacking could be the biggest risk of all for nuclear reactors.
• South Carolina electricity customers left holding the bill for abandoned nuclear reactors.   USA’s huge nuclear project failed, but top executives got $millions in bonuses!
• Workers’ health at risk at Idaho nuclear lab.
• Poor future for many decades for New Generation Nuclear Reactors.
• Dispelling the myths about U.S. President Harry Truman’s decision to nuclear bomb Japanese cities.

NORTH KOREA. A North Korean miniaturised hydrogen bomb would change everything. New UN sanctions on North Korea: US, South Korea pleased, China is wary.

JAPAN.Hiroshima’s mayor urges that Japan join the UN nuclear weapons ban: PM Abe toes the USA line on keeping nuclear weapons.    Mayor Remembers Nuclear Bombing of Nagasaki; Calls For Nuclear Disarmament; Stands with Fukushima Victims.  Ibaraki Governor vows not to allow restart of Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant.   Radioactive Hot Particles in Japan: Full Radiation Risks not Recorded  . 1,700 Contaminated Vehicles Removed from Fukushima Daiichi Plant Site. Unexploded bomb found at Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant

IRAN. It’s up to Europe to save the nuclear agreement withIran

August 14, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Christina's notes